…. greeting US soldiers and family members before boarding Air Force One at Osan Air Base outside Seoul, March 27

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Time: ….. Trayvon Martin’s parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton were on the long stretch of a turnpike between Orlando and Miami on March 23 when they heard President Obama’s poignant remark about their boy — that if he had a son, “he’d look like Trayvon.”

They say that was when they realized how far-reaching the impact of his controversial death, and their effort to get to the bottom of it, is. “It felt real warm to know our son’s name had been mentioned by the President of the United States and all over the nation and the world,” Martin says.

“His name is ringing all over the country, all over the nation, all over the world.” Fulton agrees, saying, “It showed us that even President Obama understands we need justice, that he understands our situation.” Adds Martin: “The nation is saying, What if — what if this was my son, what would I do?”

Charles Pierce: This picture, which ran on the front page of The New York Times this morning, and which accompanied the story about the opening of the arguments in the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, makes me as sad and despairing about the state of the country as I have been in an awfully long time. There are better places on the Intertoobz than this one to look either for a general overview of what may happen in the Court over the next three days – Ezra Klein’s joint did a masterful job this morning – …. but this picture makes the whole affair ring a little hollow already.

The government also revised the August figures to show a 0.3 percent increase, up from its initial report of no gain.

Stocks rose after the release of the report, which is the government’s first look at consumer spending each month. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 87 points in afternoon trading. Broader indexes also rose.

A separate Commerce report showed that businesses added to their stockpiles for a 20th consecutive month in August while sales rose for a third straight month. The increase suggests businesses were confident enough in the economy to keep stocking their shelves.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood feigns being a blocking back for President Barack Obama as he arrives backstage to meet with GOP House leaders, January 2010

AP: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the most prominent Republican in President Barack Obama’s administration, accused GOP House members Friday of putting their hope for the president to fail ahead of working toward solving the nation’s problems.

Responding to a question about why it was so difficult to get big infrastructure projects built right now, LaHood told a transportation conference that “some people don’t want Obama to be successful.”

“A big percentage of the Republicans that were elected this time came here to do zero, and that’s what they’ve done,” he said. Those lawmakers, he said, have obstructed other people who are trying to get things done.

…. “Here we are almost 12 months from the election and there are some people in Congress – look there are probably 40 people, 40 Republicans, elected to the House to come here to do nothing,” Lahood said. “That’s why they felt they were elected.”

…. “When I was elected in `94 we had a very reform-minded class, 82 new people, but they came here to do something, to solve problems,” he said. “Almost always in the past when people have run for Congress, they ran for Congress on the opportunity to help solve the problems of America.”

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Paul Krugman: Reading the transcript of Tuesday’s Republican debate on the economy is, for anyone who has actually been following economic events these past few years, like falling down a rabbit hole. Suddenly, you find yourself in a fantasy world where nothing looks or behaves the way it does in real life.

And since economic policy has to deal with the world we live in, not the fantasy world of the G.O.P.’s imagination, the prospect that one of these people may well be our next president is, frankly, terrifying.

…. the G.O.P. has responded to the crisis not by rethinking its dogma but by adopting an even cruder version of that dogma, becoming a caricature of itself. During the debate, the hosts played a clip of Ronald Reagan calling for increased revenue; today, no politician hoping to get anywhere in Reagan’s party would dare say such a thing.

It’s a terrible thing when an individual loses his or her grip on reality. But it’s much worse when the same thing happens to a whole political party, one that already has the power to block anything the president proposes — and which may soon control the whole government.

Greg Sargent: By now you may have heard about that 78-year-old grandmother who is fully against Ohio’s new push to roll back collective bargaining rights for public employees – but who had her words brazenly torn out of context and put into an ad advocating for the measure.

The tale has gone national. And now the story is about to get even bigger: The grandma is set to appear in a pro-union ad denouncing the anti-union forces as “desperate” for stealing her words. This will likely earn much more attention to a fight which is now being viewed nationally as yet another major referendum on whether the right will succeed in breaking labor in the industrial heartland.

Could this blunder by the anti-union forces be decisive? Labor hopes so….

Washington Post: As a result of stimulus spending and increased funding through the 2010 health-care law, the number of clinicians participating in a federal program to expand access to care in under-served communities has nearly tripled in the past three years.

About 10,000 doctors, nurses and other providers now participate in the National Health Serv­ice Corps, the highest number since the program was established in 1972….Officials estimated that the corps is serving about 10.5 million patients.

1:30 Tours General Motors Orion Assembly with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak

1:50 President Obama and President Lee deliver remarks

3:40 Departs Michigan

5:20 Arrives at the White House

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Last night:

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For all I know, that headline could read: “Rick Perry Rocks!” But hopefully it doesn’t :?

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AP: Barack Obama once contemplated what it would be like to take his two daughters to the National Mall to see a monument to Martin Luther King Jr.

“I know that one of my daughters will ask, perhaps my youngest, will ask, “Daddy, why is this monument here? What did this man do?” Obama, then a senator representing Illinois, said during a 2006 groundbreaking ceremony for the memorial to the civil rights pioneer.

Five years have passed since Obama reflected on those questions. The young senator is now president, and the King memorial is complete, having opened to the public in August. And Obama will get his chance to take daughters Malia and Sasha to the monument Sunday for the dedication ceremony, during which the country’s first black president will be a featured speaker.

…. Obama will speak in front of a 30-foot sculpture of King, arms crossed, looking out into the horizon. The civil rights leader appears to emerge from a stone extracted from a mountain. The design was inspired by a line from the famous 1963 “Dream” speech delivered during the March on Washington in 1963: “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

….When Obama imagined years ago taking his daughters to see the King monument, he couldn’t have known he would do so as president. But he said when the monument was complete, he would tell his daughters “that this man gave his life serving others. I will tell them that this man tried to love somebody. I will tell them that because he did these things, they live today with the freedom God intended, their citizenship unquestioned, their dreams unbounded.”

USA Today: The three-year-old free trade agreement with South Korea finally may be ready for congressional passage.

The Obama administration said today that their negotiators reached a deal with their South Korean counterparts on auto imports, exports and tariffs, the major stumbling block that had prevented the president from signing a revised treaty during a visit to Seoul last month.

Under the agreement, South Korea would cut its 8% tariff on U.S. automobiles in half and eliminate it in five years. The United States would keep its 2.5% tariff on South Korean autos during that five-year period. Automakers would get flexibility on meeting South Korean environmental standards.

Without the deal, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had estimated that 345,000 American workers could lose their jobs.

U.S. automakers exported less than 6,000 cars to South Korea in 2009 while South Korea has used its historically closed market to finance an aggressive push into the U.S. market, exporting 476,000 cars to the U.S. in 2009. The imbalance is so severe that automotive trade accounts for a full three-quarters of the $10.6 billion U.S. trade deficit with South Korea.

Business groups immediately hailed the breakthrough in negotiations, which came after four days of nearly round-the-clock negotiations in Washington.

(Hey, the Leftbaggers and Teabaggers have united yet again! They both oppose the deal, largely because they’re terrified it’ll be a success)

Three weeks ago….. AP: The President struck out in his attempt to close a new free-trade pact with Seoul …. It was an embarrassing setback for a president who stressed that the top objective of this trip was to cement agreements that would help create jobs at home…

…Obama said he needs “extra time” to reach agreement with longtime ally South Korea on a new free-trade agreement. He said he “wasn’t interested in making an announcement” just to send a signal of success and said he thinks any such pact can — and must — can be a “win-win” deal for the United States.

President Obama hailed the agreement as he was returning on Air Force One from a surprise trip to Afghanistan:

I am very pleased that the United States and South Korea have reached agreement on a landmark trade deal that is expected to increase annual exports of American goods by up to $11 billion and support at least 70,000 American jobs. Last month in Seoul, I directed our negotiators to achieve the best deal for American workers and companies, and this agreement meets that test.

American manufacturers of cars and trucks will gain more access to the Korean market and a level playing field to take advantage of that access. We are strengthening our ability to create and defend manufacturing jobs in the United States; increasing exports of agricultural products for American farmers and ranchers; and opening Korea’s services market to American companies. High standards for the protection of worker’s rights and the environment make this a model for future trade agreements, which must be both free and fair.

Today’s agreement is an integral part of my administration’s efforts to open foreign markets to U.S. goods and services, create jobs for American workers, farmers and businesses, and achieve our goal of doubling of U.S. exports over five years. It deepens the strong alliance between the United States and the Republic of Korea and reinforces American leadership in the Asia Pacific. I look forward to working with Congress and leaders in both parties to get this done and to ensure that America competes aggressively for the jobs and markets of the 21st century.

President Barack Obama greets South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak during their bilateral meeting at the G20 Summit in Toronto, Canada, Saturday, June 26, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)